Christopher Kane brings back the bonnet in AW16 ad

Plastic rain bonnets courtesy of Stephen Jones make an appearance in the designer’s new campaign

Do you remember #bonnetcore? That time (circa August 2015) when girls in New York started wearing bonnets? Well, Christopher Kane did a similar thing at his AW16 show in February, kind of. He dressed his models in plastic bonnets – the type elderly British women wear when it’s raining outside and they don’t want to get their hair wet – designed by legendary milliner Stephen Jones.

These bonnets take centre stage in Kane’s AW16 campaign, which was unveiled earlier today, on top of the head of model, musician and former Dazed cover star Jamie Bochert.

“Jamie has a great spirit, and that is the spirit of the Christopher Kane girl we are always trying to evoke in what we do,” says the designer of this casting choice. “It’s an attitude and atmosphere that we focus on, and that was important for the campaign. Here, she’s a glamorous hoarder, a recluse creating her own world; never derivative and always herself.”

Photographed by Alasdair McLellan, the shots were apparently inspired by “classic BBC documentaries” and the early portraiture of iconic English fashion photographer Cecil Beaton.

As for the collection, this season saw Kane present an alternative idea of beauty – he spoke about how “dead and thrown-away beauty often looks better than when it was supposedly alive”, and how he has “always been obsessed with recluses”.